10 Spectacularly Bad TV Ideas That Turned Out To Be Awesome

9. Knight Rider

Let us flash back to the 80's. Culture Club and Dexys Midnight Runners are storming the charts whilst Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are in their prime as rulers. Oddly, there is a giant rat named Roland saving breakfast television. At some point early in this decade Glen A Larson, a respected television producer with a track record of television hits such as the Six Million Dollar Man and Battlestar Galatica, pitched the following TV show. 'A show about man who travels the USA fighting crime and wrong doing bankrolled by a mysterious millionaire for an organisation that has no legal jurisdiction. With a talking, crime-fighting car.' Hang on Glen...what was that last bit? A talking crime-fighting car? Indulging him for a heartbeat, I suppose the next question was 'so who are we going to get for the lead?' 'Is Harrison Ford available? Pierce Brosnan? In what can only be described as a masterstroke, Mr Larson suggested a hairy bloke who had just done seven years in soap opera The Young and the Restless. Just think, if the show had been produced in the UK €“ we may have got Todd Carty! Incredibly, the show was commissioned and went on to become a massive hit with 90 episodes spanning 4 seasons and is a cult favourite even today. It has since spawned two television movies (terrible), one spin off show (Team Knight Rider €“ terrible and cancelled after one series) and a full reboot show (average €“ cancelled after one series). This perhaps demonstrates that whilst you can make a good TV show out of a bad idea it is best to only try it once and make sure you book 'The Hoff'.